NATO's
'Marketing Arm' Partners With Facebook to Crack Down on
Alternative Media

On
May 17 it was announced The Atlantic Council will partner with
Facebook to "independently monitor disinformation and other
vulnerabilities" in elections round the world.

The
initiative is being run out of the
Council's 'Digital
Forensic Research Lab',
a division which claims to have "operationalized" the study
of disinformation by "exposing falsehoods and fake news,
documenting human rights abuses, and building digital resilience
worldwide."

Commenting,
Katie Harbath, Facebook's Global Politics and Government
Director, said in a statement the social media giant was
"investing heavily" to prevent the platform being abused
during elections.

"That
includes more actively working with outside experts,
governments and other companies because we know we can't solve
these challenges on our own. This partnership will help our
security, policy and product teams get real-time insights and
updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns
from around the world. It will also increase the number of
'eyes and ears' we have working to spot potential abuse
on our service," she added.

Elaborating further on the initiative in a high-mindedblog
post, the Lab stated battling disinformation was
not a new challenge, and individuals had been propagating false
narratives to achieve "ideological aims" since before
Gutenberg invented the printing press.

"Democracy depends on debate,
but productive debate depends on facts. Too often
in recent years, we have witnessed…the deliberate spreading
of false information, hostile state actors promoting
divisive content, and attacks on fact-based reporting and
evidence-based research. Disinformation isn't a new challenge,
but today, technology allows information to leapfrog a
traditional marketplace of ideas. Disinformation can spread
on industrial levels and evolve with the tools
enabling it," the Digital Forensic Research Lab wrote.

Peerless
Hypocrisy

While
laudable aims, The Atlantic Council may not be the best
organization for Facebook to partner with in this
initiative, given its own record of spreading false
information, promoting divisive content, and attacks
on fact-based reporting and evidence-based research. For
instance, independent researchers has revealed the controversial
#PropOrNot website was established by the Atlantic Council.

NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg holds a news conference
during a North Atlantic Council (NAC) defence ministers
meeting in Brussels, Belgium November 9, 2017

Established shortly after Donald Trump won the November 2016
US presidential race, the minimalist site marketed itself
as a "resource for people who want to understand
Russian influence operations," and "distinguish
between propaganda and commercial "clickbait", and push
back." It offered a database of over 200 sites — running
the ideological gamut from popular right-wing news aggregator
Drudge Report to investigative left-wing resource
Truthdig — it claimed to be Russian propaganda outlets,
which it believed should be investigated, unlisted
from Google and Facebook news feeds and prevented
from disseminating false information.

Critics
were quick to suggest that rather
than flagging 'Russian propaganda', it merely sought
to delegitimise and discredit alternative, non-mainstream
news sources. Moreover, while the identity of #PropOrNot's
authors, owners and funders were not disclosed, digging
by independent journalists found it was covertlycreated
as a subsidiary of 'The Interpreter'
website, an anti-Russian disinformation project, which
from January 2016 — February 2017 was anin-house
"special project"of US
government broadcaster Radio Free Europe.

The
25-page PDF was little more than a promotional brochure
for major US defense firms' assorted wares, aimed
at the government of Poland, and predicated
on the notion Russia would attack or invade the country
unless Warsaw invested heavily in expensive US weapons
systems.

Moreover,
the document went so far as to encourage Poland
to take actively aggressive military steps
against Russia, on the basis the Kremlin "respects
shows of force". To strike deep within Russian
territory, Poland is said to need American long-range JASSM
air-launched cruise missiles, Navy Strike missile coastal
missiles, and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems.

"Poland
should say it reserves the right to attack Russian targets
conventionally, including in Kaliningrad. Poland should aim
to join the tactical nuclear capability scheme
within NATO, so enabling its F-16s to be carriers
of tactical nuclear ordnance. Poland should move forward
expeditiously with procurements"the report said.

A
Polish Air Force pilot looks at a model of a JASSM missile
prior to a contract signing ceremony of 40 Lockheed Martin’s
joint air-to-surface standoff missiles (JASSM), as well as
F-16 fighter plane operational flight plan upgrades,
associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support,
between Poland and U.S., at a Polish Air Force base in Poznan,
Poland, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014

The encouraged 'procurements', apparently the only way
of staving off non-existent 'Russian aggression', would
total "some US$26 billion", on top of planned
expenditures of US$34 billion, meaning windfall receipts
for the US' biggest arms manufacturers.

Nonetheless,
such activities may be unsurprising, given The Atlantic
Council's primaryfinancial
backersinclude Lockheed Martin,
Raytheon, the Ukrainian World Congress and the US State
Department — all entities which profit financially and
politically from perpetuating claims of a "Russian
threat".